September 1, 2011 Volume 9, Issue 9 Page 1 Southern Alameda County Radio Controllers President: Bob Freshwater (510) 657-2847 Secretary: Jim Newman Vice President: Rico Dalmau Treasurer: Jim Utley (510) 352-3150 Minutes of the August 12th General Membership meeting by Jim Newman Minutes Accepted as published. New Members/Prospects Dan Sievert and Roger Pena were voted into the Club as new members. Treasury Report Accepted as read. Secretaries Report None. Field Report Art Vargas reported that the flying field was in good shape. Art has been keeping the weeds under control and the grass cut. Bob Freshwater reminded everyone that there will be a work party on Aug. 20th at 9AM. The plans are to peel back the Astroturf in the pit area and fill in the soft spots with gravel. This is being done as an attempt to firm up the pits during the rainy season. Art Vargas asked everyone to pick up all pieces of your aircraft after a crash. We are starting to find a lot of pieces of aircraft in the weeds around the field. We need to keep our flying field as clean as possible to prevent anyone from coming up with a reason to evict us from the field. Electric flyers were asked to be considerate of nitro flyers when launching their aircraft. It takes a little while for a nitro flyer to prep and start their aircraft. This gives electric flyers sufficient time to put a battery in their plane and launch in front of the nitro pilot. This becomes a problem when the flying field is busy in that the nitro flyer waits until a flying station is open to start their aircraft only to find that an electric flyer jumped in front of them once their plane is ready to fly. Then they have to shut down their engine and wait for another station to open. The conclusion of this whole paragraph is please be considerate of all other pilots and communicate with them. Electric flyers were once again reminded to
Page 2 Southern Alameda County Radio Controllers point their aircraft towards the fence on the starting table prior to arming the aircraft. Old Business None. Safety Report Bob Freshwater brought to the attention of the Club that there has been an issue with people crashing in the bay and not recovering their aircraft due to the difficulty of doing so. Recently, a Club member was at the bay to see if they could recover their aircraft when a Park Ranger came up to him and inquired about the aircraft. The Ranger was concerned about gas getting into the Bay. Luckily, the downed aircraft was electric and the Club member informed the Ranger of this fact. The Ranger was also concerned about aircraft being left in the bay. Bob Freshwater stated that any Club member that has a plane go into the bay is responsible for that plane s recovery. The owner of the aircraft has no more than one week to recover the plane. Bob also warned that no one is allowed to go to the bay without an assistant. The mud is very dangerous in that you can sink up to you waist if your not careful. And be aware that this has happened to several different members when they ve attempted to go out into the bay. Old Business None New Business None Announcements Rico informed the Club members that Sig has once again been sold. This means that the future of this once great RC company is uncertain. Dummy of the month None. Show and tell None. Next General Membership Meeting Saturday September 10th at the Field Start time will be 11 AM Former member Jim Lynn has decided to sell his models and accessories. There is no list, but he has several glow engines (some NIB), a couple of airplanes, and 2 Futaba radios (both on 72MHz, one is PCM). If you are interested in seeing what he has, call Jim at 510-797-0320.
Page 3 Southern Alameda County Radio Controllers People Behaving Badly Well, here we go again. No Communications! Electric flyers are jumping the gun.not only jumping ahead of nitro flyers, but each other. I sat by the arming table and watched as they walked up to the table, looked at the people that were preparing to fly, hurry to arm their planes, walk through the nitro pits and launch. They didn t even ask the nitro flyer, who had their engines running, if it was OK to launch ahead of them. If a nitro flyer is waiting for a spot to open up, he can t keep his engine running the whole time, just has to wait for a spot before starting his engine. If you see a nitro flyer in the pits, have the courtesy to ask if he is waiting, don t just jump the gun. I have watched some people do it that are suppose to know better. THE FIELD IS FOR EVERYONE! Flying over people that are on the runway or working on the runway is not safe. I have seen Art cutting the grass, at the edge of the runway, and people flying over his head. That is not a good practice nor is it very safe. If you have to land, YELL and get their attention. Don t try to land around them. (Bob Dutra, Safety Officer) Here is the aircraft recovery team of Scott and Art. They were able to recover this aircraft after an extended stay in the Bay. We now have an inflatable raft to aid in the recovery of aircraft. If you read The Minutes, you know why we now have the raft.
Page 4 Southern Alameda County Radio Controllers Upcoming Events for September 2011 2nd 4th 5th 10th 17th & 18th 24th &25th 24th & 25th Mini West Coast Festival @ Kingdom Airpark, Lodi Jose Macias - 209-464-5313 3rd Annual Labor Day Fly-In @ Salinas Area Modelers Rick Maida - 408-778-6855 mrcorsair@usa.net Electric Fly-In & BBQ @ SCCMAS, Morgan Hill Mike Radu 408-358-6773 con tests@sccmas.org Pattern @ WavemastersR/C, Hollister Jon Carter - joncarter60@comcast.net Trashman Classic Warbird Race @ SAM, Sacramento JR Schiager -916-792-2156 paul@schiagerslawnservice.com Waldo Pepper s Flying Circus @SACRC, Union City Jeff Whitney 510-537-0141 jeff.whitney@sbcglobal.net The complete NCRCS schedule is posted on the SACRC s website We had a short Work Party on Aug. 20th Here you can see Arnel painting the flight box and Jim Tacking down the new matting
Page 5 Southern Alameda County Radio Controllers Seen at the Field Former member Richard Eberli has one of the most spectacular charging stations. The lighting system on his aircraft was pretty cool also.although the picture doesn t show it well. But it sure made the aircraft visible against our gray sky. Art Vargas has two new aircraft from Nitro Models. These are larger than the E-Flite versions and have far more detail to them. Art did give both some additional detail. Both aircraft come with retracts and the T-28 has sequential gear doors and running lights.
Southern Alameda County Radio Controllers SACRC Treasurer 14921 Fjord St. San Leandro, Ca. 94578 SACRC SacRats Visit our website @ www.sacrc.org What s in this publication * Page 1 Meeting Minutes * Page 2 Meeting Minutes con t * Page 3 People Behaving Badly * Page 4 Upcoming events * Page 5 Seen at the Field * Next Meeting September 10th 11AM at the Field Jim Utley, Editor